^{page 167 note 2} See K. Busk, The Position of the Chief in tht Modern Political System of Ashanti, pp. 87–91.

^{page 167 note 3} Ashanti was formally annexed in 1902.

^{page 167 note 4} The British several times refused to extend their commitments in Ashanti even at the request of the Asantehene, because of the expense involved. For instance, in 1888 they refused his request to establish a Resident in Kumasi.

^{page 167 note 5} Some dissident tribes—notably the Adansi—continued raiding into Ashanti from British territory.

^{page 167 note 6} There were seven wars—1806, 1811, 1814–15, 1823–6, 1863, 1873–4, 1900—three large-scale military operations hardly distinguishable from wars— the 1853 Ashanti invasion, the 1881 alarm, and the 1896 British expedition—and frequent skirmishes between the British and the Ashanti in the nineteenth century.

^{page 167 note 7} Both parties desired to avoid war even to the extent of enduring humiliation. Thus, for instance, the British did not counter the 1863 Ashanti expedition, while the Ashanti passively submitted to the British in 1881 and 1896.

^{page 168 note 1} Gyani failed to surrender a gold nugget to the state, as he was supposed to do under Ashanti law, and fled to the Cape Coast colony. The British Governor, Pine, did not feel justified in giving up a man to the embassy sent by the Ashanti (for the offence was an important one in Ashanti law) for something he did not regard as a crime. The Ashanti regarded this refusal as an insult, especially in view of the reparation treaty between the two parties, and the war which ensued followed primarily from their two different conceptions of Law.

See W. W. Claridge, A History of the Gold Coast and Ashanti, vol. i, pp. 509–10.

^{page 168 note 2} See W. W. Claridge, vol. i, pp. 609–12. Being unaware that the letter was a forgery, both the British and the Ashanti later suspected each other of the worst intentions.

^{page 168 note 3} Under this treaty the Ashanti had to pay an indemnity of 50,000 ounces of gold, renounce their claims to the Denkera, Assin, Akim Adansi, and Elmina tribes, keep the Kumasi road open to trade, and abolish human sacrifices.

^{page 168 note 4} In 1881 war nearly broke out over a misunderstanding (in which the Golden Axe was involved) centred on a possible heir to the stool of Gyaman, one of the disaffected tribes. The British, thinking the Ashanti were about to attack them, undertook military preparations. The Asantehene, having no such intentions, thought these indicated a British attack. War was averted only by the Asantehene surrendering the Golden Axe and paying an indemnity for a war he did not intend.

^{page 169 note 1} In the 1890's Germany and France became potential rivals with the British for West African colonies. Moreover in the late 1880's and 1890's pressure was brought by the British Chamber of Commerce to take over Ashanti because of disturbances to trade. See ‘Further Correspondence on Affairs in Ashanti ’: 1896 (Parliamentary Papers), hereafter F.C.A.A.

^{page 169 note 2} The Ashanti had accepted the British demand for a Residency at Kumasi but, unfortunately, the latter had deported Prempeh without warning, giving as their pretext the unpaid indemnity of Fomena.

^{page 169 note 3} Rattray, Ashanti, p. 292. The quotation continues: ‘The Ashanti were “silent ” but every man left that meeting to go and prepare for war. I am sure that if the Government of that day had ever known what is here described it would never have asked for the stool “to sit on ”.’ The first engagement of the war was that of Captain Armitage's expedition to look for the Golden Stool. (Armitage had previously been sent on a similar expedition in February.)

^{page 169 note 4} Parliamentary Papers 1901: ‘Correspondence relating to the Ashanti War 1900 ’, pp. 10–26. (Eye-witnesses at the Palaver of 28 March who published accounts were Lady Hodgson, The Siege of Kumasi, and Captain Armitage, The Ashanti Campaign of 1900.)

^{page 169 note 5} Ibid., pp. 110–16.

^{page 169 note 6} This is quite clear from the tenor of his speech, Lady Hodgson, p. 59, and the Governor's final report, where he writes: ‘Up to the date of my departure from Accra there had been no reports received from Kumasi which could lead to the inference that the Ashantis were in a disturbed state bordering on rebellion; or that they were in a state of preparation for revolt. … There was, therefore, really no reason for me to consider the opportune-ness of my visit. … As it was, I left Accra quite unconscious of any danger. This is clear from the fact that I had only the usual escort of some 30 Hausas.’ Moreover he only became aware that Kumasi was deserted after his arrival there and points out that this unawareness of unrest in Ashanti was shared by the other British officials in the Gold Coast, who had not regarded the various incidents as serious (in all the annual reports of the Gold Coast from 1896 to 1900 there is only one line with regard to the state of Ashanti in the report of 1899).

^{page 170 note 1} P.P. 1901, p. 17. ‘Kings and chiefs, I want you to look to me as your friend. I have been in this country for a long time … and I know a good deal of your native customs … and although at times I might have to do certain things that may not be altogether palatable to you … yet I shall try to do all I can to be your friend, and to let you see that you have someone to turn to if you have difficulties.’

^{page 170 note 2} Ibid. ‘You know perfectly well that with the entry of the British Government into Ashanti the power of making human sacrifices ceased; that your lives are now safe. You have only to advise the white officer who is resident in Kumasi when you are in danger and you have the strong arm of the British Government to defend you. There is one other matter that has come to an end at the same time, that was the buying and selling of human beings as if they were cattle or bales of goods. In all countries of the Queen everyone is free. … You know by this time what the state of things is under the British Government. You have had four years of it and I venture to say that if you were to speak out what is in your hearts, you would say that you do not want to return to the old dissensions among yourselves, and that in fact, you do not want to return to the old state of things.’

^{page 170 note 3} Ibid. ‘Now Kings and Chiefs …. What must I do to the man, whoever he is, who has failed to give the Queen who is the paramount power in this country, the stool to which she is entitled ? Where is the Golden Stool? Why am I not sitting on the Golden Stool at this moment? I am the representative of the paramount power; why have you relegated me to this chair ? Why did you not take the opportunity of my coming to Kumasi, and give it to me to sit upon?’

^{page 170 note 4} Ibid. (pp. 112–13): ‘The collection of the enormous quantity of warlike stores, which the siege of Kumasi, and the determined opposition to the gallant force under Colonel Sir James Willcocks showed them to be possessed of, must have been spread over a long period. It is in itself evidence of a predetermined outbreak. The whole history of the Ashanti is a record of wars, wars against their neighbours, who until the power of the British began to be manifested, were either directly subservient to them or in a state of vassalage…. It is perhaps not to be wondered at that the warriors of a warlike race, unaccustomed to any other life than that of pre-dominance, should have decided to make an attempt to throw off the British yoke at the first opportunity which might appear to them fitting.’

^{page 170 note 5} Ibid.: ‘The Kumassis, the dominant Ashanti tribe, were, I was to discover, smarting under the loss of their king—Prempeh—without having struck a blow in his defence…. The whole incident was a stigma upon the valour of the Kumasi warriors — a stigma which, by native custom and native tradition, blood alone—the blood of the offending white man—could wipe out.’

^{page 171 note 1} The Ashanti, in Hodgson's opinion, conceived of his visit as a favourable opportunity to revolt because they wanted to capture him and exchange him for Prempeh (see Parliamentary Papers 1901, p. 90, and also Lady Hodgson), and also because the British Government was at the time preoccupied with the Boer War.

^{page 171 note 2} See note 2, p. 170.

^{page 171 note 3} See notes 4 and 5, p. 170.

^{page 171 note 4} In his final report after the war Hodgson wrote (pp. 113–14): ‘So long as it [the Golden Stool] remains in the hands of the Ashanti, so long does the power of the king—whether the king exists or not —remain with them … “the whole history of Ashanti is attached to it and only the possessor of it is acknowledged as Head or Master of the Ashantis”. … The Golden Stool is, therefore, a valuable asset to the Colonial Government, and it is a matter of regret that its delivery was not insisted upon in 1896.’

^{page 172 note 1} Being unconscious of his own preconceptions Hodgson did not realize that he did not understand the Ashanti. See p. 169, note 6, for Hodgson's estimate of his own understanding of the Ashanti.

^{page 172 note 2} As all British officials concerned with the Ashanti—including even the Parliamentary Opposition—shared a more or less common set of unquestioned presuppositions, virtually all agreed with Hodgson's misinterpretation of the Ashanti, his views of the history of Anglo-Ashanti relations, and the character of the Ashanti regime, the 1896 Expedition and the Golden Stool, &c. This is illustrated by the following quotations from Opposition Speeches in the House of Commons Debate on 18–19 March as published in Hansard:

Rt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain. ‘What are the customs of the natives with which we are interfering ? Human sacrifice is one, fetishism of all kinds is another and slavery is another … and when you come to ask what is the cause of the subsequent disturbance I have no hesitation in saying that it was the bloodlessness of the previous expedition. The people of Ashanti in common with every savage tribe hold it to be a point of honour to fight for their chief … they are ready to accept defeat but they are not ready to accept the consequences of defeat without actual conflict. … Let me first deal with the incident of the Golden Stool. … I entirely approve of his [Hodgson's] attempt to secure it. The Golden Stool is of very great “moral and intellectual value ” … in the opinion of the tribe and according to the custom of the tribe the possession of the Stool gives supremacy. And if, therefore we could secure this Stool we should be doing more for the peace of Ashanti than, probably, by any armed expedition.’

W. Redmond (Labour). ‘They might be called savage people, and no doubt it was a great mistake that the Almighty, when He created the world, did not make all populations as highly civilized as the English people.’

Broadbent. ‘The Liberal Party … would not attempt to teach savages the wickedness of human sacrifices by indulging in a great slaughter, with modern weapons, of the poor savage people we sought to rule.’

See also the speech of the Rt. Hon. Sydney Buxton (the Liberal Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1893–5) and his letter of 14 December 1894 on p. 237, F.C.A.A. 1896 (‘… the Queen cannot receive these persons [the “Ashanti Ambassadors ”]. The King of Ashantee is now only head of a tribe and does not hold a position which would entitle him to send “ambassadors ” to the Queen of England, neither are they the class of person whom the Queen could be asked to receive. Further there are ample and solid grounds for believing that the Ashantee Kings, Chiefs and people still continue the practice of human sacrifice; on which ground alone his messengers could not be received here’).

^{page 173 note 1} W. E. F. Ward, A History of the Gold Coast, p. 303, maintains that the Ashanti believed that Hodgson was coming to Kumasi to search for the Golden Stool in person.

^{page 173 note 2} Around 1890 Prempeh addresses the Governor as ‘My Good Friend ’. See letters of 7 April 1890, 22 August 1890, 20 January 1891, F.C.A.A. 1896.

^{page 173 note 3} Ibid. p. 16 (27 December 1889). Prempeh writes to the Governor: ‘Your true and firm friendship you stated in your letter with me, I am sorry to say it wants wanting, for I believe that when two persons are keeping friendship each of them seeks the interest and welfare of the other, but it is not the case here. I thought that my subjects had come to you to solicit your intercession for their safe return, for I believe that when a friend's boy or servant offends his lord he runs to his lord's friend to ask pardon for him, so when there is any punishment whatever, through the intercession of the other friend, the offended servant is pardoned, and then he returns to resume his former duties. This is real friendship, but I am extremely sorry it is not so with us; I am deprived almost of all my subjects; on whom then shall I rule’. See also letters on pp. 35 and 40–41. Prempeh's assessment is not without foundation, because when his message of pardon and welcome back was delivered to the Kokufus and Dadiasies, they elected to return. Ibid., pp. 37–39.

^{page 173 note 4} The British Governor's assessment of the situation, in contrast, was that the dissident tribes were refugees from oppression. See his letter of 16 July 1890 to Prempeh, ibid., p. 27: ‘You must fully understand the views, policy and firm determination of this Government with regard to refugees seeking its protection…. If any of the Adansis, Kokufus, Bekwais, Dadiassies … wish to return there is nothing stopping them, but this government, not withstanding its sincerely friendly wishes toward you, does not consider that it would be in any way justified in advising any of the people referred to upon the question of returning to Ashanti.’

^{page 173 note 5} This is already evident in Prempeh's letter of 27 December 1899 to the Governor: ‘You stated … that the king of Kwahu have signed treaty with the British Government; may I ask for what cause, have I had palaver with him, or is it only the wish to the British Government that he should do so. The Sefwis I learn from them that during the late disturbances they have run to the British Government, and that if I seek for them they will gladly give in their allegiance to me, all these and many others I find that if it is the British Government's wish they all will return.’ See also letter, pp. 70–71.

^{page 173 note 6} See quotation from Sydney Buxton's letter in note 2, p. 172.

^{page 174 note 1} The British were so suspicious of the Ashanti that they did not believe the latter's acceptance of their demand for a Residency in Kumasi which made the 1896 Expedition superfluous. See correspondence between the ‘Ashanti Embassy ’ a nd the Colonial Office., ibid., pp. 107–37 (e.g.p. 126): ‘I … acknowledge … your letter … protesting against the continued expenditure upon military preparations, which you say … is quite unnecessary seeing that the Kings, Chiefs and people have already accepted to the fullest extent the demands of the British Government. In reply I am to say that … the fact that the messengers made no offer to accept British terms until the expedition was ordered and that the King has not, even to this date, shown the slightest disposition to comply with them, strengthens Mr. Chamberlain's distrust as to the real object of the communications of which you have been the channel, since he cannot conceal from himself the fact that, if it were the intention of the King and the desire of his messengers to procrastinate, and delay the expedition until the wet season was at hand, the course taken was one well calculated to effect that object.’

^{page 174 note 2} The Asantehene submitted to the British and their demands on the arrival of the Expedition in Kumasi. He was arrested on being unable to pay an immediate indemnity of 50,000 ounces of gold (he did not possess this sum and offered an immediate first payment of 680 ounces). Ward, p. 303, maintains that the Ashanti gained the impression from this that Prempeh was deported as security for money.

^{page 174 note 3} Casely Hayford's book, Gold Coast Native Institutions, written in 1902, can be taken as more or less representing the Ashanti conception of the British (Hayford was a British-educated Fanti barrister), He writes on p. 4: ‘Whether you call them spheres of influence, territories, possessions, protectorates, or colonies, there is hardly a European power which will not fight for their acquisition, even though there is derived from them not one farthings worth of profit, taking the outlay it costs into consideration. … There is in some cases an insane thirst for territorial acquisition cost what it may…. To state the proposition broadly, it is simply the primitive instinct of acquisitiveness in man which operates in the case of nations no matter the extent of their boasted civilization.’

^{page 174 note 4} Cf. Kufi Kafia's remark before the Palaver that the Ashanti would fight if the Governor had not brought a good message. Claridge, vol. ii, p. 437, and Lady Hodgson, p. 59.

^{page 174 note 5} Armitage, p. 10, quotes the Ashanti war cries as follows: ‘The Governor came to Kumasi on a peace palaver. He demanded money from us and sent white men to bring him the Golden Stool. Instead of money the Governor shall have the white men's heads sent to him in Kumasi. The Golden Stool shall be well washed in the white man's blood.’

^{page 174 note 6} See note 3.

^{page 175 note 1} The Ashanti distrust of the Lands Act of 1897— ‘the sole object of which is to protect the Chiefs against speculators ’ (Chamberlain)—and the British of the 1896 Ashanti Embassy's acceptance of their terms illustrate how each party interpreted to its own disadvantage the other's intended acts of co-operation as evidence for rather than against their hostile image of the other. Similarly each, in line with their hostile image of the other, interpreted the other's friendly professions as hypocritical despite the apparent implausibility of this interpretation. (Cf. Hayford, p. 269, ‘… the talk about human sacrifices, barbarous customs and slave raiding is all cant. What lies behind it all is the desire for the good things of Ashanti that would come into the pockets of the British Capitalist’; Sir Branford Griffith, the British Governor, reprimanding the District Commissioner on being ‘duped ’ by the friendly professions of the Ashanti—Parliamentary Papers 1896, volume 48, p. 29: ‘With all natives you cannot be too cautious in what you say but especially so with regard to Ashantis. It requires considerable experience of this people with their plausible ways and apparently friendly disposition before the belief can be entertained that they are artful, unscrupulous, treacherous….’)

^{page 176 note 1} The concept of death (owu) as the termination of life (nkwa) is foreign to the Ashanti. It is rather the reverse of birth (awu). Danquah writes (p. 157): ‘… death (owu) is only an aspect of birth (awu), an instrument of the total destiny, the continuity of the kind, the permanence and persistence of the organic whole, which is the greatest good of endeavour.’ See J. B. Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of God, especially section 5, chapter 3.

^{page 176 note 2} The Golden Stool was allegedly produced out of the sky by Komfo Anokye at a great gathering of condans in Kumasi. Anokye had convinced Osai Tutu, King of Kumasi, that he had a divine mission to unite the Ashanti tribes. Tutu united the Ashanti tribes and the Golden Stool became revered as containing the sunsum or life-force of the nation which would perish if it fell into foreign hands.

In 1921 war nearly occurred again as a result of a false rumour that the British were again after the Golden Stool. It was averted as a result of the British Governor's renunciation of any desire for the Golden Stool on the advice of Rattray, the Government Anthropologist. See Annual Report for Ashanti (Colonial Office), 1921; Ratttay, Ashanti, chapters 23 and 24, and Ashanti Law and Constitution, chapter 24; also Busia, p. 91.

Rattray also maintains that the Ashanti fear of taking the Golden Stool to a war they were certain to lose was the reason for their submission in 1896 ‘deeming the loss of their king a trifle in comparison with the loss of their Golden Stool’ (Ashanti, p. 291).

^{page 176 note 3} For the Ashanti, the Asantehene held his authority as the embodiment of his ancestors, not as an individual, as supposed by the British. The confusion resulting from the British and Ashanti acting in terms of two different conceptions of the individual can be illustrated from the episode of the British refusal to receive the Ashanti Embassy of 1895. One of the reasons given for the British distrust of the embassy was that its head Prince Ansah claimed to be the grandson of King Prempeh who was only 25 years old, whereas Ansah had already been in the employment of the Colony for over 23 years (see p. 120, Parliamentary Papers 1896). Ansah was the grandson of the Asantehene Kwaku Dua (1838–67) and therefore of the Royal Stool. As the present Asantehene is the embodiment of his ancestors, Ansah was regarded as a grandson of Prempeh, occupant of the Royal Stool.

^{page 177 note 1} Hodgson's assumption that the Golden Stool was a seat or throne is implicit in his demand of it to sit on (see note 3, p. 170). It was never sat on.

^{page 177 note 2} The effect of seeking the Golden Stool was likely to be the exact opposite of what the Governor intended thereby. (See note 4, p. 171.) Rattray writing in 1921 states: ‘I believe it will be found that all the obedience, respect and great loyalty we have been given by the Ashanti is given through and by reason of the Golden Stool. I believe that far from benefiting had we ever taken this stool … its power would have worked against us ’ (Ashanti, p. 293).

^{page 177 note 3} See Rattray, Religion and Artin Ashanti, chaptet 4.

^{page 177 note 4} On the 1874 Expedition a British soldier was hanged for looting in the centre of Kumasi. This made a big impression on the Ashanti, in whose eyes it was completely unjustified (particularly as hanging was abhorrent to them).

^{page 177 note 5} I have attempted to illustrate how the issues between the British and the Ashanti had a different significance for each in terms of his respective assumptions, rather than to attempt a comprehensive exposé of all their differences in terms of their underlying assumptions. Numerous other differences rooted in their different conceptions of God, procreation (which affected their attitudes to slavery), disease, agriculture, hygiene, friendship, &c. have not been dealt with.

^{page 178 note 1} In this way, through the mutual generation of fear, suspicion or distrust, a hostile situation developed in Anglo-Ashanti relations, so that the same measure—i.e. the establishment of a Residency in Kumasi in 1888—which was welcome to the Ashanti at the earlier period of less distrust, became repugnant to them and an object of conflict at the later date of increased suspicion (1896).

^{page 178 note 2} I refer now to the way in which the British conceived of the Golden Stool—i.e. as a throne, a material inanimate object—not to the importance they attached to it, which was dependent on their interpretation of its importance to the Ashanti.

^{page 178 note 3} While the concepts of primitive societies are of lower explanatory power than those of western (or scientific) societies it must not be supposed that considerable knowledge about the world is not available to them, including much that is unknown to the West (e.g. many modern wonder drugs, such as quinine, were first discovered in the potions of medicine men). However, this knowledge is formulated in terms of less scientific or efficient concepts than Western knowledge is. Thus, for instance, the Ashanti attribute the periodic eruptions in Lake Bosomtive (when the water turns black, fish are thrown to the surface, and a stench is given off) to the Lake spirit who ‘explodes his gunpowder’, whereas the western geologist explains it in terms of decaying organic matter, on the bottom of an enclosed lake, which becomes buoyant with gases and rises to the surface and, forming a black scum, gives off a stench. (See Rattray, Ashanti, chapter 2.)

^{page 178 note 4} The following two examples from Anglo-Ashanti relations illustrate what I mean by saying that the British acted in terms of more scientific assumptions. The 1874 Expedition blew up the sacred trees and groves of Kumasi. The Ashanti, believing in a world of spirits for which these trees were the shrines, were terror-stricken, expecting fearful vengeance from their spirit gods. The British, acting in terms of the framework of inanimate mechanics, expected nothing of the sort and it never came. Similarly Hodgson's notion of the Golden Stool as a material object (a throne) was more mature than the Ashanti one, who regarded it as the repository of their physical well-being which it was not (i.e. they would not have died had it been taken away). The concepts of high universality or explanatory power give better prediction—i.e. the consequences of acting in terms of them are less likely to be unsuccessful than on lower explanatory assumptions.